Slow Way Home (34 page)

“Brandon. Brandon Willard.” Esther’s voice rang out. I raced back through the hedge, hoping that the boy would not hear the warden calling my name.

“What are you doing back there?” Esther’s hands were planted on the wide hips, and for good measure she curled her lip.

“Nothing . . . I was just . . .”

“You’re smoking cigarettes back there, aren’t you?”

I shook my head extra fast.

“Well, then, what’s in the bag?”

“Nothing.” I tucked the bag deeper inside the front of my pants.

“There’s something in there all right. If you don’t want me to know, then it can’t be any good.” She reached for the waistband of my pants, and I shoved her arm so hard she almost fell.

“They’re letters, okay. Just letters from my grandparents.”

Wrinkles around her mouth twitched. Esther said nothing as she turned to walk back inside. I obediently followed, thinking that if she told Aunty Gina it would be all over.

While Esther washed a sinkful of dishes, I tried to figure out my next step in our dance. Maybe I should turn up
The Brady Bunch
real loud so that Esther could hear how a real housekeeper was supposed to act. You don’t see Alice acting this mean to the Bradys, I thought.

But Esther took a step before I could. A click echoed from the kitchen, and voices from a TV soap opera filled the front of the house.

When I eased the cellar door open, moist air cooled my legs.

Voices from the soap opera rolled through the air-conditioning vent.

They were so clear that I turned to see if Esther had broken into my sanctuary. But the big oak door was still sealed as tight as my emo-tions. Moving closer to the end of the room, I noticed one of the crates slightly ajar. With eyes glued to the door handle, I carefully lifted the lid. Yellowed, curled photographs were scattered among old
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tissue paper. One photo showed a young girl standing beside a magnolia tree, its blooms busting out towards her. On the back, written in unsteady penmanship, were the words “Ginny Mae age 11.” Other photographs were of the girl and a dog standing on a front porch sprinkled in snow. An old couple sat in chairs next to them. By the time I examined the fifth photo, I had painted a grim history for the girl. Probably some long lost stepdaughter of Esther’s, whose pictures had been hidden after the girl was killed by her. The air-conditioning system clicked on, and the door popped. I clutched the box of evidence and only breathed again when I heard Esther’s footsteps and then the sound of running water.

Laying the photographs and my letters across the table with the canned fruit, I stood with all the respect I’d give a church altar. Behind the table a daddy-longlegs spider crept up the block wall towards a crack. Watching him escape, I continued to study the past and began to map out a new destiny.

Twenty-two

A
t breakfast I watched Esther’s question mark–shaped body move around the kitchen. When she served hash browns, I picked around the food searching for some sign of poison.

The way I figured it, she had already killed one girl and I didn’t want to die before Nana and Poppy got out of jail.

“Good morning, my precious,” Aunty Gina said and kissed me on the forehead like she did every morning.

“What time did you get in last night?” Esther asked the question in such a way that made me think Aunty Gina worked for her.

“Ten o’clock. Can you believe it? All this special session nonsense is just about to wear me to a thread.”

The doorbell chimed, and Aunty Gina rubbed her temples.

“Who on earth? It’s not even eight-thirty yet.”

Nairobi and the pretty social worker walked in with clipboards and smiles. After they declined Aunty Gina’s invitation to join us for breakfast, it was time to get down to business. The questions were routine, about an insurance policy to make sure I was living an adjusted life with Aunty Gina. I knew all the answers by heart, but when Nairobi tricked me by asking a new one, I froze.

“Friends, Brandon. Are you making any friends?”

Aunty Gina tried to pat Nairobi’s arm, but Nairobi’s eyes never
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left me. “Oh goodness, yes. He’s making all sorts of new friends at Miss Helda’s school,” Aunty Gina said.

“Do you ever have friends over to play?”

“Umm, no, but there’s this boy behind the house.”

Esther stopped wiping off a pot long enough to give her two cents. “Behind the house?”

“Winston,” I said while watching the social worker make notes.

“Oh, why yes. That family from up north. You know, Esther. The man who runs that copier company. His little son.”

“What do you all like to do?” the pretty social worker asked.

“Umm . . . well, he plays tennis, but I don’t . . .”

The china cup sounded like a chime as Aunty Gina put it back on the saucer. “Oh, what a fun idea. You boys can take lessons down at the club. Why, Esther can set up the lessons and drive y’all each morning. Why don’t I call his mother and set it up?”

“Uhh . . .” Before I could think of anything to say, Aunty Gina was already on the phone explaining about my need for friends.

Satisfied that I would have a recreational outlet two days a week, Nairobi and the social worker got up to leave. Aunty Gina walked them to the door, reassuring them of happiness each step of the way.

“How much longer do you think you’ll be in session?” Nairobi asked.

“Lord only knows,” Aunty Gina said. “Judge Jackson is walking those halls night and day fighting for that courthouse annex.”

“That budget is so heavy-handed,” Nairobi said. “Social Services needs some of those funds. Not to mention . . .”

“Now, Nairobi, as I told you before, I am just one woman on a committee full of grown men. Well, at least most of the time they act grown.” Aunty Gina attempted to chuckle.

“Just one woman who sits on the Ways and Means Committee.”

Nairobi turned to the social worker. “Senator Strickland serves on one of the most powerful committees in the legislature—the one with the purse strings.”

“Now really, Nairobi . . .”

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“Shall I stop by this afternoon? We could go over the line items offered by Senator Dayton.”

Before Aunty Gina could say a word, Nairobi and the government woman had walked through the door and begun their journey.

Winston didn’t ask about Mama until the third tennis lesson. It was right after his maid had removed our lunch plates from the patio table.

He asked as easy as he would ask about my backhand. “So, where is your mom anyway?”

The glass of iced tea was cupped in his webbed hand, and I resisted knocking it out to create a distraction. “Huh?”

“Clean the wax out of your ears. Your mom. Where is she?”

The steady clipping of the sprinkler system matched the way his question clipped me. “She’s dead. Killed down in Africa.” The lines I had used to curse my mother back in Abbeville came out as a reflex.

A forbidden spot, much the same way I saw his hands. A part that was untouchable.

“Man. What was she doing in Africa?”

“Look, I don’t want to talk about it, okay.” Tossing the napkin onto the table, I gave in. Running past the vegetable garden and through the hedge, I tried to hate him for making me lie again. Safe in the compound of my new life, I struggled to dump the mental image of Mama screaming at Woolworth’s. No matter how hard I tried, her claw gripped me tighter than I had clung to her as a baby.

While Esther took her after-lunch nap, I scooped up ash from the fireplace and sprinkled it around the infested plants in the vegetable garden. But no matter how hard I tried, the words I shared with Winston followed me like a prophecy I couldn’t escape. As the ashes hit the edges of the vegetable leaves and floated down to the ground, I wondered if this was what a cremated body looked like. The woman on Esther’s soap opera had cremated her husband and then scattered his ashes at the beach. The stench of burned material filled my senses, and before I could stop them, tears began to seem as natural as Winston’s
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webbed hands. Through the tears I stared while ashes fell in a rain of dust, all the while knowing that I was sprinkling away Mama for good.

Deep in my being I knew her second chances were used up. Reforming her was a dream that had been spilled just like the necklaces that spewed from her purse at Woolworth’s. There were only so many people I could save, and Mama was beyond my grip. She always had been.

That night long after Esther had gone to bed, I sat in my bed and thought about Mama. Aunt Loraine had been right about Mama. She wasn’t dependable and never would be. Deep inside I knew that she was gone for good, and the thought that I was better off without her scared me to the core. I was sure the road to eternal hell had been paved by such bad thoughts. Besides, the Bible said to honor your mother and father. My mother was in jail, and my father didn’t own up to me even after my mama gave him the chance. Straining to hear the voice of Sister Delores remind me that God would be both my mother and father, all I heard was the steady chime of the grandfather clock.

The steps were so soft that at first I thought Jesus had come back for me. Jumping out of bed, I flung the door wide open. She was standing slump-shouldered with her earrings in hand. The embarrassment of being caught in my underwear swept over me, and I ran back to bed. Even slamming the door and burying my tearstained face in the pillow could not stop her.

“Brandon, honey. Are you all right?”

Aunty Gina’s sweet perfume tempted me to look up. Her face was twisted in a half smile of pity. The night-light formed a halo around her yellow hair, and at first I thought she might be a real-life angel.

She wiped the tears from my eyes. “What, honey?”

I shook my head, hating my tears as much as I hated being alone.

“Do you miss your grandparents?” Her words were so sweet that you could almost drink them up, and I did just that.

Words flew out of my mouth like a bad cough. “I want them out.

I want them out right now.”

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“Oh, honey, I know.” Aunty Gina pulled me closer. The material of her suit padded my chin. “It’s all right to cry. Just go ahead and let it out.”

Pulling away from her, I finally did let it out. “Please get them out. Get them outta that jail.”

“Why, honey, I wish I could, but there are . . .”

“Call President Nixon. I saw you with him. Saw him in that picture down in the library.”

Aunty Gina halfway chuckled, and I fought the urge to pull away from her completely. “That picture is probably five years old. Just a silly fund-raiser with so many people you couldn’t stir them with a stick. I was just one of hundreds, many hundreds, who paid money for that picture.”

The begging surprised Aunty Gina as much as it did me. Words long lost from the play now poured. “But you know lots of people.

You can do stuff. Please, Aunty Gina.”

The hallway light flowed over her and streamed across the bed.

Clinching her fist, she patted it against the skirt. “I just don’t . . . we’ll see.”

“What have you put all over my garden? Poison?”

Esther was standing in front of the TV screen holding a tomato plant, its vine still carrying the light dusting I’d given it.

Sliding backwards until the arm of the sofa pressed against my leg, I tried to put out the fear that was sparking in the same old place. “It’s ashes.”

“Ashes? I knew it. I knew you were smoking behind that hedge.

Smoking, weren’t you?”

Shaking my head, all I could do was stare at the plant she held up like a hunted duck. “Answer me,” she yelled.

“No . . . no, ma’am. It’s from the fireplace.”

“What are you doing with ashes from the fireplace?”

“It helps fight bugs. I saw . . . I saw bug bites all over the leaves and . . .”

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“And you decided you’d throw ashes on them? I’ll be lucky if they don’t die for sure now. Where did you learn such a crazy idea? In that juvenile delinquent home, I’m guessing.”

“Poppy told me.”

“Who?”

“My granddaddy. He used to put ashes on his garden.”

Esther looked at me for a long time before she marched back into the kitchen. That evening while she ate her meal downstairs, I stayed upstairs waiting for Aunty Gina. As soon as I heard the downstairs door open, I let out a howl and flopped down on my bed. Pity had been my biggest enemy. Now it would be my best friend.

I counted to twenty-seven before Aunty Gina had made it to my door. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

This time I did not let her see my dry face. I would just holler and stiffen every time she tried to roll me over. It was a routine I decided would be played out every day until Nana and Poppy were released.

Either she would break down and call the White House or she’d send me back to the feeble-minded house.

One night after a particularly loud tirade, I eased down to the cellar and pulled the stepladder underneath the air vent.

“I just don’t know what in the world to do with him,” Aunty Gina said. “You said he won’t eat.”

“He didn’t eat a thing all day,” Esther lied. As much as she may have wanted me out of her house, I wanted to get out even more.

“Oh, there’s only so much I can handle.”

The sound of iced tea being poured trickled down the vent.

“Now, Mrs. Strickland, like I told you before. He’s not your son. The boy’s got a family.”

“Esther, I am his family for the time being. That sorry excuse for a mama is not going to be out of jail anytime soon. He’s better off here with us.”

“Well what about the grandparents he’s screaming so about?”

“Lord, there’s just so much red tape with these types of things.”

Esther cleared her throat. “Well what about that colored lawyer?

Can’t she help do some . . .”

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“Enough of such talk. My head is about to split wide open. Anyway, all I’m saying is that I want you to take extra measures with Brandon. Think of him as a little fragile bird or something. Why, you’re crazy about birds. Just think of him as a little sparrow with a broken wing.”